​As of December 2017, the world population is estimated to be 7.6 billion people. The United States has a population of 323 million people, of whom surveys find that a majority believe that space aliens have visited Earth. And yet, somehow, the same few dozen people are perpetually in charge of contaminating popular culture with ufology narratives. It is difficult to explain how this is even possible, and yet somehow it is. Let’s take a look at how the UFO believers worked together to deliver this past weekend’s dramatic but overblown revelation that the Pentagon spent millions on UFO research from 2007 to 2012. This story broke during my weekend break, but the intervening days have made much clearer the secret connections that help keep the river of UFO money flowing.

​On Saturday morning, a coordinated series of articles by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Politico announced that former Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada, a Democrat, had earmarked $22 million to fund an Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program at the Pentagon, over the apparent objections of Pentagon brass, who did not want to the program. Media reports indicate that most of the money went to a division of hotel billionaire and UFO crank Robert Bigelow’s aerospace company, to which the Pentagon outsourced most of the UFO research. This resulted in exactly zero alien spacecraft identified.

Media outlets quickly noted that Reid and Bigelow are longtime friends, and there is quite a whiff of corruption in the notion that Reid’s friend would both advocate for a UFO program and personally benefit to the tune of millions of dollars from this program.

“I’m not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this thing going,” Reid said in response to the reports. “I think it’s one of the good things I did in my congressional service. I’ve done something that no one has done before.” On Twitter, Reid added that there is “plenty of evidence” to ask whether UFOs are alien spacecraft.

But this was only the start of the story’s deeper connection to the web of UFO hucksters and snake oil salesmen who have created a nearly unstoppable perpetual motion machine to churn out new UFO revelations where none existed.

There is no really good place to begin the story, of course, because the government was involved with UFOs from the beginning. Within days of Kenneth Arnold launching the modern UFO era with his sighting of the so-called “flying saucers” in Washington State in July of 1947, the government has been intimately involved with the creation and maintenance of the UFO myth, both directly and indirectly. Declassified government documents show that the UFO story was originally a fictitious one, created by science fiction editor Raymond Palmer to sell magazines, and embraced by an eager public. FBI records strongly suggest that as early as 1947, the predecessor of the Air Force embraced the emerging UFO myth to provide disinformation and a cover story for Cold War spying and military testing.

Driven in large measure by science fiction, the UFO myth took on a life of its own, even after government investigators determined that anomalies in the sky were not spacecraft from another world and shelved their active investigations into such possibilities. But in Las Vegas, a young Robert Bigelow entered into the common pastime of the 1950s, watching the U.S. government test atom bombs just beyond the city limits. Bigelow claimed later that his exposure to the science culture of the 1950s and early 1960s—his adolescence—forever instilled in him a desire to probe the depths of space. It is certainly no coincidence that this was also the height of the UFO flap.

In the middle 1990s Bigelow began funneling money from his hotel business into the study of fringe science, particularly UFOs and the paranormal. This is when he crossed paths with Las Vegas journalist George Knapp, another longtime Democrat, and UFO nut. Knapp had been reporting incredible (literally and figuratively) stories about Area 51 and government UFO secrets since the 1980s, but in 1991 Knapp left his journalism career to do public relations work for a company representing advocates of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. The company attempted unsuccessfully to lobby Sen. Harry Reid, who had been elected in 1987 and opposed the waste site. But the connections formed would play an unwitting role in creating the UFO research funding decades later.

In the mid-1990s, Knapp returned to journalism and published a 1996 story about the Skinwalker Ranch, where anomalous events were said to have occurred. By this time, Bigelow had come to see Knapp’s frequent tales of UFOs and the unexplained as a genuine mystery worthy of exploration. He bought the ranch and funded Knapp’s investigation into it, eventually yielding the 2005 book Hunt for the Skinwalker, which Knapp coauthored with a biochemist. Knapp worked with Bigelow from 1996 until the middle 2000s.

Shortly after Hunt for the Skinwalker was published, Knapp gave a copy to Reid, with whom he was already acquainted. According to Politico, Reid was quite taken with the book that Booklist described as “ultimately short on final answers.” He reportedly told Knapp that if his book were true, it represented a national security threat that the government was obligated to investigate. Well, actually, Knapp reported that Reid said he was obligated to “invest some money.” The subtle difference in wording shows where the real priority lay. After all, Reid did nothing to publicize the issue or ensure that research was conducted in an open, fair, and effective way. Instead, he teamed up with now-deceased senators Ted Stevens of Alaska, who claimed to have seen a UFO, and Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, who wondered if UFOs were a Russian- or Chinese-created security threat. The three senators funded the program without input from the rest of the Senate, and Reid ensured that the money went more or less directly to his friend Bigelow, who was also a large campaign contributor to Reid’s reelection efforts, to the tune of many thousands of dollars.

By the time the UFO program ended, Reid had also moved to make a Nevada museum with a credulous Roswell crash exhibit an official part of the Smithsonian. The senator had clearly become taken by science fiction narratives and had come to believe in space aliens. He then used that belief to help drive money back to Nevada and his friends. Basically, it was a fig leaf excuse to indulge his buddy Bigelow’s UFO fantasies while providing pork to the hometown crowd.

Weirdly enough, Knapp was happy to trumpet the Pentagon program and Reid’s involvement as legitimizing ufology, despite also believing that the government is engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the truth about UFOs. Reid happily talks about UFOs now that he is retired but said not a word in office, because he is a pork-barrel hypocrite. The cognitive dissonance is surprising, both on Knapp’s part and Reid’s. If there truly is a conspiracy, what purpose does giving the conspirators more cash serve?

But this is only the start of the tight web of connections.

The program’s funding dried up in 2012, though some reports say that the Pentagon continues to analyze anomalous aerial reports—as they should, since other countries are sending who knows what into the sky! The program’s director resigned with a blistering letter blasting the Pentagon for failure to take the UFO threat seriously. But he didn’t resign in 2012 when the program ended. Instead, Luis Elizondo resigned in October of this year, at exactly the same time that he joined former rock star and current UFO nut Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, a company that launched on October 11.

For this timeline to have occurred, Elizondo had to have started talks with DeLonge before his resignation. Elizondo also provided details of the program to the media, part of an effort by To the Stars to repair the damage done by its money-grubbing launch and DeLonge’s uninformed appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast in October. Elizondo did not explain why he waited five years to resign, or why his outrage was timed to being paid by DeLonge’s for-profit venture. The selective outrage strongly implies motives beyond national security.

The admission of that Elizondo worked for a Pentagon UFO program, and that the Pentagon UFO program was actually a government funnel for cash to Bigelow’s corporate UFO research unit also gives a pretty good indication of the secret UFO programs that DeLonge teased in his interviews promoting sale of To the Stars stock and which DeLonge claimed told him he had come too close to the truth. Here, the timeline makes it quite tempting to see Elizondo and the AATIP program as the actors here, with Elizondo’s status as a true believer in space aliens leading to the supposed statements to DeLonge that he came too close. Indeed, taking DeLonge’s statements at face value, and slotting them in to the timeline provided by the “revelation,” it appears that we can account for most if not all of DeLonge’s interactions with the government if we were to assume that he was mostly just interacting with Elizondo and his staff, along with Bigelow’s corporate unit. This doesn’t account for the claim that a government official confirmed to him in public that an alien had been captured during the Cold War, but then DeLonge claimed he was so uninterested in that claim that he never bothered to ask about the alien.

It does, however, explain DeLonge’s claim that the Pentagon wanted him to promote alien research. If Elizondo was in fact the driving force there, we really just saw him angling for a job with DeLonge by flattering the millionaire rock star, and coming away with a lucrative new job.

The close connection between DeLonge’s claims and Elizondo’s operation can be seen in DeLonge’s somewhat confused statement to Rogan that he had access to a lump of metal with unnatural physical properties. Here is the New York Times writing about how Bigelow’s “company modified buildings in Las Vegas for the storage of metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo and program contractors said had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena.” These lumps of metal are also likely to be related to those referenced by Jacques Vallée earlier this year. From Vallée we know that these lumps of metal were collected from supposed UFO landing sites, and from the Times wording, it isn’t clear that Bigelow’s investigation of the metal is a Pentagon project provided by the military. It might just as easily be an independent project funded by the government or by Bigelow himself. It is also more than possible that true believers like Elizondo believe things about the metal that are not supported by facts.

However, one piece of evidence suggests a plausible explanation: DeLonge claims that he has access to this metal, so if we take him at his word, then it would strongly imply that the metal that Bigelow is studying is either not U.S. government property or otherwise isn’t considered important. Otherwise, why would the Pentagon give away UFO debris to a random dude who employs the guy who resigned in anger because the Pentagon wasn’t taking UFOs seriously? I suppose there is an outside chance that they laughingly tossed him a lump on the way out the door because they thought nothing of it, but the more likely possibility is that Bigelow and DeLonge are working together in some undisclosed way. And indeed, To the Stars has praised Bigelow and on October 30, DeLonge teased that Bigelow would be joining To the Stars, only to retract the statement, presumably because Bigelow objected.

Oh, and Jacques Vallée is a paid consultant of Bigelow Aerospace and has been working with Bigelow for twenty years, with a non-disclosure agreement about his work with the company. What a coincidence.

​It is very tempting to see Elizondo as teasing efforts by Bigelow to study the metal that Vallée collected, though Vallée said in September that the U.S. government had already been doing the same research, presumably referring to Bigelow and his testing of similar lumps of metal. Does this mean that Bigelow has been handing out metal lumps to UFO researchers like Vallée and DeLonge? The fact that both men suddenly had access to supposed space metal within weeks of each other, and that both have connections to Bigelow, who reported was working on the same, simply cannot be a coincidence.

But here is where things take a turn. George Knapp is also the weekend host of Coast to Coast A.M., where he promoted the “revelations” this weekend to the show’s audience of fringe believers. Peter Levenda, who coauthored a bad ancient astronaut book with DeLonge, similarly trumpeted the revelation on his Facebook page, even congratulating his readers for believing in a government conspiracy to study UFOs before the “proof” that such a conspiracy had in fact been outsourced to a major campaign donor with a UFO fetish.

So, the bottom line is this: No evidence of space aliens has come to light, but a small group of people have made a lot of money off of this. Inspired by midcentury sci-fi paranoia, even members of the moneyed class, the media, and the Senate itself indulged in their fantasies of alien contact. Robert Bigelow received most of $22 million earmarked for UFO research. Tom DeLonge leveraged that into millions in investments in his own company, which pays him a minimum of $100,000 per year. Harry Reid received tens of thousands in campaign contributions from Bigelow. And Knapp and Levenda cash in through their media products. This isn’t so much disclosure as it is a multimillion-dollar round-robin cash grab where the truth seems to be lost amidst the many opportunities to trade fantasy for money.

But as you know, I do not receive those sweet government kickbacks or stock options, so consider making a donation to help me keep this site up and running during my annual fundraising drive!

What a scam! Thanks for pointing this out. I think the public at large has no idea Bigelow is involved in this latest revelation as it is being presented as info coming from the Pentagon. It is like there is a war going on in the UFO community and its all about money and not revealing anything new. I noticed in Wilcock's last appearance on Fade to Black he spent an excessive amount of time trashing Tom Delonge. Guess it sucks when someone hones in on your scam. What a circus. It has now become a game to see who can be the voice of questionable evidence at best.

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BigNick

12/19/2017 12:07:26 pm

The information about bigelow is common knowledge, certain people just don't care. If you look at the comments from Jason's last post you will find a comment from a true believer who claims it is proof of a conspiracy. He links to a NY times article that is mostly about the fact that Reid funneled millions to his buddy. The true believer did not seem to read that part

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TotheBars

12/21/2017 01:11:08 am

The public doesn't care, and Bigelow has so much cash that he funded part of this out of his own pocket to start with, and did it on the cheap to help save the US money. He honestly doesn't care if the whole world thinks its a scam, because while you sit at a computer gossiping, he builds space habitats, chases ufos, and enjoys his empire of chasing truths that science no longer is allowed to.

Tom Dedingdong is a bit out there, he'll be relegated to the background once the tech side of To the Stars gets going in a couple years. He takes the heat while the other serious scientists focus on the goal. But you guys will keep going after him because your egos are easy to bait with "how did that guy get this insider power, and he's a fool!". It'll suck up all your time and focus while the project moves ahead.

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BigNick

12/21/2017 12:44:23 pm

Did Bigelow use his own money to save the government money, or did he get the government to pay for something that he was going to do anyway?

Brad

12/21/2017 01:16:28 pm

Why do we need a private individual having access to films taken by military personnel that are paid by the people when the military could release these themselves minus the 22m dollar middle man?
Why is the mainstream press characterizing this as a "Pentagon Program" when it has been clear for years already that Bigelow is the one doing this? It is all hype over old news basically. Who ever the bozo is that gave this guy 22m is basically a criminal. I'm afraid this round of "disclosure" is nothing but an advertising campaign for these gravy train riders who have enough clout to get this b.s. on CNN and the New York Times. Still don't believe any of it and it is very amusing to see how this all plays out.

TotheBars

12/22/2017 03:45:06 am

You have a private individual or corporation because FOIAs force the government to reveal things they don't want to. Not just UFOs but any cloak and dagger operations. Bigelow set up his own study group years in advance with NIDS in the 1990s...so as most government operations go, the government subcontracts out to someone with the skills and know how to get things done for them. Bigelow like most adventurous and inquisitive people, is interested in space, ufos, and the paranormal, and he's a give me some proof, move the dial, guy. The Rockefellers could have done this years ago but didn't, Bigelow does.

He probably would have continued his own investigations with his company but he wouldn't have been granted access to those videos. $4.4 million per year didn't just go to him, it went to the program run by the DOD. To a billionaire, I'm sure Bigelow could care less about the cash but wanted the information.

A lot of reactionary defensive posts here...anger over what I don't know, if $4 mil a year makes you mad then where have you been as we hit $20 Trillion in debt as a country? Did you protest in the streets? Why are you at this blog when you have bigger fish to fry? Or is it your ego's world view that you have to preserve so everyone is a crook and liar?

Michael Smith

12/28/2017 12:49:17 am

I tend to believe the pilot. https://youtu.be/3w0aXTfDDq8

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E.P. Grondine

12/19/2017 11:32:37 am

Hi Jason -

Typo alert:

"had be captured"

should read

"had been captured"

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Americanegro

12/19/2017 06:53:05 pm

Let not your good deeds be seen among men, Chief. Heapum bad juju.

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/contact-jason.html

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Mary Baker

12/19/2017 07:26:26 pm

Nope, we need to keep Jason's ego trimmed. Otherwise he will sail off into the nether-realms.

Americanegro

12/19/2017 09:30:27 pm

And where are you institutionalized?

E.P. Grondine

12/20/2017 10:39:52 am

AN -

"Chief"? You are confusing me with my colleague Fletcher Wilson, "Starman", Chief of the Hopewell, and spiritual guide exta-ordinaire, who always was, and always will be.

Usually Jason just fixes the typo, and deletes the note.

I've mentioned before to you that I have more friends of African American descent than you do.

Jason has the makings of a great little story here. but lacks the writing skills to turn this draft into really good copy. What is called a "You have to read this" story..

I am pretty certain that his description of Arnold's sighting is way off.

Personally, thanks to Reid we have an unused nuclear waste storage facility, and numerous completely full maxed out local "temporary" storage holding facilities being used for purposes they were not designed for.

Americanegro

12/20/2017 11:29:41 am

"I've mentioned before to you that I have more friends of African American descent than you do."

It's not a contest Chief. You don't get to collect us and trade us anymore.

Machala

12/19/2017 12:39:42 pm

I don't subscribe to any UFO conspiracy theories - government or otherwise - but I do know that many people around Sedona, Arizona and the Verde Valley experienced sighting UFO's back in the 70's while I was living there. I, myself, saw a UFO at the time, on more then one occasion .
No, we weren't eating magic mushrooms, smoking herbs or crunching crystals. The sightings were real, verified, denied, and "covered up" by the Defense Department and the Air Force.
Why ? Very simple answer. The UFO's were real....REAL Stealth fighter jets and bomber planes that were being secretly tested at that time. Anyone who has seen a Stealth flying - up close and personal - will understand why so many people - who'd never seen or known about this unique aircraft would be convinced it was an alien aircraft. It is a scary and impressive sight.
The Stealth was a true Unidentified Flying Object !

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Sharkman

12/19/2017 02:03:43 pm

I agree that the connection between Reid and Bigelow is highly suspicious. Also, I saw Elizondo on CNN with Erin Burnette and he failed to mention that Bigelow had received 22 mil. from Reid. But, they also showed images from the cameras of Navy jet fighters and one included the audio of the pilots comments which showed their amazement at the UFO. Jason do you have any idea if the images CNN broadcast were real or just another hoax?

I have no idea. UFOs aren't really my thing, but just because someone can't explain what he or she saw doesn't mean it was an alien spacecraft. There are a thousand things one could propose, and no evidence for space aliens.

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BigNick

12/19/2017 02:30:55 pm

That is what I will never understand- the leap from unidentified to alien. I saw a "ufo" once with my sons, I did not immediately think aliens.
"Do you really think we are the only life in the universe?" No. No I don't, but I also do think we are the only advanced species without warp travel or cryogenic stasis or whatever it would take for an alien race to get to earth.
U2s, F117a, B2, sr71s, stealth blackhawks- there are plenty of UFOs created right here on earth.

Jim

12/19/2017 02:40:35 pm

I once posted a comment on a site that was discussing a sighting of multiple UFOs. I happened to be less than a mile away from where they were sighted at the exact same time.
I didn't see any of these UFOs, however I may have distracted, marveling at the large number of fireflies that evening.

Americanegro

12/19/2017 03:36:02 pm

"I also do think we are the only advanced species without warp travel or cryogenic stasis"

Huh?

BigNick

12/19/2017 03:58:12 pm

Should be

"I also do NOT think we are the only advanced species without warp travel or cryogenic stasis"

And I'm sure it still makes no sense. When I ramble on a post I tend to cut out parts to make it more concise and it turns into an incoherent jumble.

I rewrote this post 3 times.

Americanegro

12/19/2017 05:14:37 pm

Figured it must be something like that. Sounds close to my that "there are aliens but there might as well not be because we're not going there and they're not coming here."

As you pointed out in another post on this page, Bigelow is anything but under-the-radar; 60 Minutes is about as mainstream as it gets https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bigelow-aerospace-founder-says-commercial-world-will-lead-in-space/ and he is involved in nuts-and-bolts development for the existing space program. He was also (unintentionally?) parodied in an episode of the reboot of Doctor Who: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek_(Doctor_Who_episode)

hoagy

12/20/2017 01:37:35 pm

>There are a thousand things one could propose
propose one or two, JC

Kal

12/19/2017 10:11:09 pm

The aggregate liberal news site The Young Turks even covered this story.

I like how this Cenk Ungar, who is clearly a right wing guy, seemed amused at all the UFO stuff, and also thinks we are not alone, and it would be silly to think we were, and arrogant to think we are alone.

Sure, we're not alone, ha, okay, but why this primitive planet that has the same resources as any other terrestrial planet in a system with a G type yellow white sun? Why us? Curious aliens? Are the just simply amused too?

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Americanegro

12/20/2017 03:07:38 pm

"this Cenk Ungar, who is clearly a right wing guy"

I seem to be asking this a lot lately, but where are you institutionalized?

"Cenk Kadir Uygur is a Turkish-American progressive political activist, businessman, columnist, and political commentator. Uygur is the main host and creator of The Young Turks (TYT), an American liberal political and social commentary program. Before beginning his career as a political commentator, he worked briefly as ... Uygur created the talk show The Young Turks with the goal of starting a liberal-leaning political and entertainment show."

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E.P. Grondine

12/21/2017 09:10:08 am

You may be onto something there. Perhaps they visit us for entertainment, stopping by the Earth whenever they need a good laugh.

I wrote in my Psychic Vibrations column (Skeptical Inquirer), January/February, 2013, concerning a UFO discussion panel held at the The National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas. They had a special exhibit on "Area 51."

"During the question and answer session, Las Vegas skeptic John Whiteside asked about the supposed “authentic alien artifact” in the Area 51 exhibit. The moderator referred the question to reporter George Knapp, in the audience, who (scandalously) was the source of that “artifact.” Knapp has made a career out of reporting on weird stuff like alleged saucers at Area 51, Robert Bigelow’s Haunted Ranch in Utah, etc. Who had verified that supposed artifact? The Russians, and others. Who exactly? No answer. Encouraged by the moderator the two to take the discussion off-line afterwards. Immediately after the close of the questions, Whiteside says he was approached by Jim Brown who identified himself as the Acting Director of the Museum. Brown berated him for asking such a question, claiming that it threatened their funding. If a Museum’s funding is threatened by asking a legitimate question, the fault lies not with the questioner, but with the Museum. Whiteside went looking for Knapp after this, no more than five minutes later, to find that he had quietly slipped out the door."

I'm thinking it's very likely that this was one of the same "artifacts" that Bigelow had.

How many TONS of artifacts would one need to have before one had to modify a building for them?

You have the makings of a great little story here. but lack the writing skills to turn this draft into really good copy.

I need more black friends. Will you be my black friend?

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E.P. Grondine

12/21/2017 09:23:10 am

AN, you need more friends, whatever their skin color.

Jason needs to fill in the timeline, give the principle characters some personality in a couple of sentences, set out the documented dollar amounts, and then pitch the piece to some Nevada newspapers. By turning his worknotes into completed pieces and selling them he would have some money to support his work.

E.P. Grondine

12/21/2017 09:32:53 am

"give the principle characters some personality in a couple of sentences" an easy way of doing that is with direct quotes from them, along with some say some rock and roll party stories or statements on other issues.

E.P. Grondine

12/21/2017 09:45:20 am

AN, you need more friends, whatever their skin color, and you can not afford to be selective about them.

(I wish Json's blog comments had an edit function for posts)

Dani Chen

12/21/2017 01:35:28 am

Oh god Skeptical Inquisition is still being published? All hail the former CIA backed mag that is used to spook scientists that don't know better to keep them quiet for fear of losing their job or tenure. Or if too close to the truth, ferret them out, hire them, and then shuffle them off into some US government SAP where they have to be quiet. I used to read that crap in the 1990s and fell for the "science" before finding out that it's not about the science, it was about keeping the celebrity scientific priesthood in control. Then the internet showed up and called out Randi and Nickel and how their selective chopped up materialistic tests were excluding all the data to prove they were "right". No thanks...once "context" and all the data is used then SI or CSI or LIE or whatever they call it might be more reputable.

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Americanegro

12/21/2017 11:14:19 am

Not knowing who Nickel is I'd like to hear about Randi's "selective chopped up materialistic tests".

Michael Redmond

12/20/2017 01:51:54 pm

So there's nothing here aside from the money? Then there's this ... http://devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/15603/day-earth-didnt-stand-still/

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Bob Jase

12/20/2017 03:50:32 pm

Yeah, wwell, this IS the same Pentagon that also spent millions on psychic warfare, thought projection, telekinesis and distance viewing - the military haas its share of nuts too.

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Michael Redmond

12/20/2017 04:46:33 pm

I'm not saying I accept the "visitors from outer space" explanation. I am saying that in light of the videos, and the boatload of anecdotal reports over the years from observers who would otherwise be recognized as credible, that there is indeed something worth investigating here from a national security angle. Then there's the claim that *physical evidence* exists and is being studied (qed). And I'm unpersuaded we ever got the true story about the "psychic warfare" and "remote viewing" stuff, or whether this line of inquiry was ever really terminated. One of most interesting and thought-provoking chapters in Annie Jacobsen's wildly uneven *PHENOMENA The Secret History of the U.S. Government’s Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis* discusses areas of research that the military and the spooks continue to be interested in, publicly, more or less – these include quantum vacuum energy (zero-point energy), quantum entanglement, nonlocality, retrocausality, people who suffer injuries due to “anomalous events” (huh?), and the development and deployment of "spidey sense" capability for military purposes. One senses here a convergence of interests -- and to blow all of this off as "nuts," well, respectfully, this does not strike me as a rational or considered response.

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AmericanIngoSwann Rules!

12/20/2017 05:47:31 pm

So Major Ed "Killshot" Dames is a disinformation program? Or just the sort of kook that the military hires? Like Michael Aquino or [insert your favorite here].

"quantum vacuum energy" is pretty well understood. We're not mining it anytime soon.

It appears that "quantum entanglement" which is pretty well understood in terms of behavior but not mechanism, might have applications in computatering.

Be serios, Ted.

Dude

12/21/2017 12:58:18 am

This article takes on the same brainwashing spin as ufo space brother believers...it spins you up with false connections or thin ones in order to paint "my world view". "They" are bad because of money trails (22 million is paltry money over 5 years...the average NBA player makes 32 million over 5 years!) and people with similar views working together is a sure sign of conspiracy! Instead of people with common interests working together.

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RobZ

12/21/2017 05:40:48 am

Oh look! A squirrel!

Funneling public money to a friend's private company is generally considered to be at least bad judgement, if not bad governance.
Although, if that private company won the contract in an open and unbiased tender, this may be just unfortunate.

But somehow I suspect the outsourcing wasn't really tendered out at all.

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E.P. Grondine

12/21/2017 09:53:30 am

Yep. That is pretty much it, and you have the political donations coming back, along with the Blink 182 musician forming his company.

Americanegro

12/21/2017 04:01:52 pm

"Funneling public money to a friend's private company" is what senators do. The idea that "The three senators funded the program without input from the rest of the Senate" doesn't bother me; it's small potatoes and senators don't pay attention to details.

If you really want to start caring, look at the Solyndra loan guarantee and the GM bail/buyout. 22M is pocket change by comparison.

On a personal note, it has been brought to my attention that I am deficient in having the appropriate number of black friends, so interested parties should be advised I will be conducting email interviews, in the next round telephone interviews, with a face to face interview and skills test for finalists.

Dude

12/21/2017 07:14:28 pm

Tell me another company that studies UFOs, works with NASA, has the dedicated storage space, and willing to suffer the ridicule that might destroy their future business projects by being tied to UFOs?

Get me a list and we can forward it to the Senate so they can get proper bids this time.

BignNick

12/21/2017 09:28:43 pm

Dude-

Did he get to review the existing evidence that the armed forces has been collecting for over 50 years? Did he get access to the bodies from Roswell? Or did he get federal money to run a program that he was going to run anyway by himself? Did he take over their supposed program, or run a parallel program? If everything else that they say has happened is true, then why are we shown a single video from an F-18?

E.P. Grondine

12/22/2017 11:06:11 am

Well, that is one plan, AN.

It kind of reminds me of Sheldon Cooper, though. Why not just leave your keyboard behind and go out somewhere?

There are people everywhere, and as I have mentioned to you before, at this point you can not afford to be arbitrarily selective.

Americanegro

12/22/2017 05:20:18 pm

Mr. Grondine, who cannot prove Indian descent:

Your personal attacks are no longer acceptable. They are now a pattern of behavior. Consider yourself on report, you real name using idiot.

In another age I would have gotten some pipe hittin' niggers and gone medieval on your ass.

In the current day of modern times, I suggest you consider courtesy and not being a Summer's Eve.

E.P. Grondine

12/23/2017 10:59:17 am

Hi AN -

You want to get personal?
You have not seen personal yet,
and you won't because you yourself are not worth it.

As far as my Native heritage goes, you can google "Mummy Twigg" and "squaw",
and that does not include the Adams side of my family.

Hell, the younger generation of Twiggs even believe a state park in Pennsylvania is named after their ancestor "Bent Twigg".

I have never apllied for any benefits based on my Native ancestry, and that includes casino rights.

Once again, I think I have more friends of African American descent than you do, AN. If you get up from your computer and get out you may make some friends as well.

Be civil.

Americanegro

12/23/2017 11:41:33 pm

"You want to get personal?
You have not seen personal yet"

Heapum big threat Chief. Is that the firewater talking?

"Be civil."

In the current day of modern times, I suggest you consider courtesy and not being a Summer's Eve.

Your personal attacks are no longer acceptable. They are now a pattern of behavior. Consider yourself on report, you real name using idiot.

Cosmin Visan

12/21/2017 09:32:18 am

Give it up. I imagine the videos taken by the US military, together with radar and multiple witnesses were also produced by Bigelow for a buck? So you have people with money spending money to research something they believe in? So what? Next you will say that Senator Stevens, who was tailed by a UFO during WW2 was also inspired by Palmer, and that reports of foo fighters are made by people who travelled into the future, read sci-fi, then went back to flying over war-torn Germany in order to just make up stuff.
I think your shtick is to say that everything is inspired by sci-fi writers and people who want money.

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E.P. Grondine

12/21/2017 09:56:05 am

I think Jason is genuinely baffled by why people so desperately want to believe in extra-terrestrial contact.

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Dude

12/21/2017 07:21:27 pm

They don't. But people didn't want to believe in a lot of false concepts until the evidence became so overwhelming that they had to accept it. Either all the military witnesses over 70 years are wrong about what they saw and see today...or Jason is. And if Jason doesn't really care about UFOs then I'm not sure he's the right guy to follow for an informed answer.

E.P. Grondine

12/22/2017 11:11:41 am

Dude,

People I know and respect have seen UFO's.
And it is a valid subject for scientific investigation.

Its the campaign contributions and earmark that have my interest
here. It looks like MUFON never learned of this contract, and I can think of other people far more qualified to do the work.

Dude

12/22/2017 11:57:34 pm

I'm all ears if we have better people with the resources...I bet Bigelow would welcome them to step into the limelight. I'll take it one step farther...if taxpayer money is worry to debunkers that want to hide their head in the sand...then lets get these wealthy donors to step up and fund a partnership. The catch is that ALL reports and videos must be made public every 3-4 years on the research. Musk? Paul Allen? Russian Yuri Milner? They could fund that for 100 years at 5 mil a year.

Now my opinion is we're kind of wasting our time with that other than to help those that struggle with the truth, including scientists that want hard evidence, but don't lift a finger to study any of the data we do have.

It would be great if Russia, China, NATO, and the US all got together and just stepped up one day and said "these are not ours" so we can just get on with it. Instead we keep using the "secret military project" as the catch all to comfort those that fear reality. Most of us know there's some non-human intelligence flying these, and yet we still live our lives and fumble through life...admitting they (whatever they are) exist won't change that.

E.P. Grondine

12/23/2017 11:21:04 am

Dude -

I was sorry to see Jason note the decline of MUFON.

When people come to me with their experiences, I used to feel confident in pointing them in MUFON's direction. It is frustrating to me that I now have doubts about doing that, but will likely continue to until I learn of anything better.

If MUFON had of known of this contract, perhaps they would have applied for it.

I know you feel intensely about this, but I do not, and could easily spend $22 million of public money on the geological study of impact structures. It would be nice to better know exactly what hit when.

For that maater I write better songs than they do:
http://robertrpatterson.com/mysongs/Good%20Time%20Blues.mp3

Michael Redmond

12/21/2017 10:00:43 am

ABOUT THE $$$: "The contract was posted for months. The winning bid came from Las Vegas space entrepreneur Robert Bigelow, a billionaire who had funded his own UFO studies for years. Bigelow built secure facilities inside his aerospace company."

“But the contracts were posted for months…”
“Posted? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the contract department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes, yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”

Tom mellett

12/21/2017 10:01:51 pm

Came across this reddit thread which also see the DeLonge juggernaut as a cash grab, but this writer involves John Podesta in the mix as well.

So what's happening? This is where John Podesta comes into play. Podesta, who has his own history of UFO interest, featured prominently in his Wikileaks e-mail, documented contact with Tom Delonge and has been repeatedly promoting Tom Delonge's company via Twitter. I think it seems reasonable that Delonge's team heard about the DoD UFO program being declassified prior to it's declassification, and used this as a platform to provide entertainment, and a fictional backstory to the program.

John Podesta, in previous emails, has been shown to have direct contact with journalists, publications, specifically the publications that have been promoting Delonge's story. The NY Times, Politico, CNN, FoxNews is involved now as well.

Does it not seem reasonable this is just an opportunistic cash-grab? The program was real, and declassified, although it did little except server as a tax-haven/slush-fund/whatever, and likely did no legitimate research. Delonge's company TTSA jumped on this opportunity, as they already purportedly have $2 million in funding from outside investors, put together the video, the Elizonda backstory, and used their media contacts to make it all happen; completely unrelated to the Pentagon program.

Just my 2 cents, feel free to debunk. I'd love for aliens to be real too.

tl;dr: Tom Delonge is capitalizing on actual program disclosure, but anything related to him is solely for entertainment purposes to promote his company and using his media connections w/ Podesta to promote it.

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Znarf

12/21/2017 11:10:02 pm

I was a technical writer on several projects. The federal government has been involved with oddball studies for well over a century. Most large organizations have staff members who specialize in areas they are expert in. Thus, Putoff pops up on UFO and ESP studies. In my case I am a methology nerd and tried to protect tax funds from illogical practices. However, in many cases involving UFOs, there will not be any ideal type of evidence gathering mechanism predeployed ahead of time. There are massive numbers of cases of UFOs, hovering over nuclear weapons facilities, near ramming of airliners, a disturbingly large number of abduction victims whom I ran into before such cases were taken up by the fringe media, and so on. It is true that very strange craft have been built by the feds, but they cannot do what we saw in the Nimitz tape. The art of applied physics does not exist that can explain these things easily. I am interested in encouraging studies of these things under the premise that what I do not know or understand will kill me.

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An Over-Educated Grunt

12/22/2017 10:31:28 am

The one demonstrably false thing you just said is that you're any sort of writer, technical or otherwise.

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E.P. Grondine

12/22/2017 11:15:34 am

Yeah.

But go into downtown Younsgstown, Pittsburgh, or Detroit and tell them you want $22 million to look at UFOs.

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Americanegro

12/22/2017 06:01:57 pm

"Pittsburgh"?? Where Carnegie-Mellon is?? SMFH. Is the concept of "vibrant city" foreign to you Chief?

Did you have heapum firewater?

E.P. Grondine

12/23/2017 11:07:58 am

Hi AN -

Sadly I can no longer drink. You rubbing that in my face does not make it any easier, particularly when assholes such as yourself make me desperately want to self mediate.

E.P. Grondine

12/23/2017 11:10:30 am

AN- Yeah, Pittsburgh.

Americanegro

12/22/2017 06:04:47 pm

Franz,

In

your

work

as a techincal writer, did anyone discuss paragraphs with you? Because your let's call it "stuff" rather than what I want to say is unreadable.

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ChimChim

5/20/2018 01:05:09 am

I've worked on DoD classified systems and programs for about 35 years. I worked specifically on C2 systems (track plane, pull firing key, shoot missle, plane fall from sky) similar to the Aegis system the Nimitz pilot mentioned in the news video. Several things keep getting missed in this discussion on both sides of the issue.

1. The pilot stated that the Aegis system held a target they were investigating; Aegis can't track birds past a few hundred feet. Aegis can track a "gofast" which is what I believe the Navy labeled this video. A gofast is basically an ocean racing powerboat equipped to run drugs; these are of concern to the USN. With a full frame image of a large gofast the object would move at a rate of three boat lentghts every second which would make it look like the speed was extraordinarily fast. The pilot stated that it moved rapidly to the south which is Mexico which is where gofasts run to when off San Diego. The pilot stated there was no rotor wash, consistent with a gofast. The pilot stated things came out of the object, again consistent with a drug runner dumping bales of drugs which get picked up by smaller boats from the US coast.
----Whatever it was it wasn't a bird.

2. The pilots were tracking with IR and one was a trainee (glancingly mentioned in the aforementioned news reel). IR is a confusing tracker. This is much like looking at something through a telescope; an extremely distant object zoomed in on very closely that changes speed is extraordinarily difficult to track and is reported almost always as really fast.
---Pilot error/misunderstanding is likely.

3. With an Aegis, a Carrier and likely an early warning aircraft in the immediate area there would have been plenty of information in several forms. US Navy aircraft and vessels take unidentified craft seriously until ruled non threatening. The Aegis was tracking it as a low flyer (based on the initial belief it was a helo). Other units should have also held radar tracks and the target would have appeared accross all platform C2 systems in the area -- alll recorded There would be ongoing deconfliction of the unknown target, which would involve discussions amongst tactical elements and attempts at radio contact -- all recorded. They were local to San Diego op areas which are monitored by various civil and DoD tracking systems --all recorded
---There is enough information to work with.

4. Since the video has been released, one would assume the other information would also be releasable. The nonsensical "FOIA doesn't apply to contractors" is straight up bullshit. Get this straight, a contractor on a DoD (and very particularly a classified ) contract owns exactly ZERO percent of the information they work with. Anyone who has EVER worked in a classified environment should know that. Since the government OWNS the information, the government RELEASES the information. Contractors are given rights to USE information in execution of contracts and under specific caveats detailed in the contract.
---There is no contractor hiding government information from FOIA.

5. There was an investigation conducted by the military. No one seems to be concerned with what the military distilled from that. The focus has been thrown on the IR video and not the entire event and the correlating information available. What is the context of the videos in relation to the military training operations (by the way, training operations are typically Unclassified or quickly declassified). The context, perception and emphasis of things get skewed in this; like the phrase, " No! don't stop!" or is it "No! Don't! Stop!" the tone tenor and texture can also change that meaning.
---Context is missing in most comments. (Like this one)

6. $22 Million is chump change in terms of a military black budget that brought us things like "The Men Who Stare at Goats." The fiscal irregularities should be questioned, but in the grand scheme of government money it's not a lot. Here is the problem though, it's a slippery slope; how long until we have a billion dollar annual black budget to counter the alien threat or to talk to goats? Remember we won the coldwar by using up to a billion dollar annual black budget to fund the (hope you knew this) Taliban against the Russians in Afghanistan. Many mentions have been made of an Ancient Aliens "industry." When something is considered an industry it opens itself up to fiscal exploitation.
---Where there is a lack of clear motive, follow the money.

Based on the video and pilot comments, this is 99.99% a go fast drug runner bobbing around dead in the water dumping bales of weed for pickup ("things were coming out of it") and then running for the border ("it turned sharply to the south."). The imagery is consistent with a Cigarette hul ("it was oblong shaped")l. The frame size would be about 100 feet and a go fast would move one frame diameter per second, which would seem really fast. These vessels are known to operate in the San Diego

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Michael Redmond

12/23/2017 09:19:35 am

Jack Brewer weighs in heavy on UFO-Pentagon, and, IMO, spotlights all the right issues and asks all the right questions ...
UFO-Pentagon Story Reflects Fundamental Problems ...
http://ufotrail.blogspot.com/2017/12/ufo-pentagon-story-reflects-fundamental.html

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E.P. Grondine

12/23/2017 05:05:44 pm

Let me see if I got this straight:

In sum, Bigelow gets the contract, and then with part of the money hires out someone who could do the job, minus the campaign contributions?

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Dude

12/24/2017 12:08:01 am

Good link to some great thoughts. Jack Brewer tends to be on the "I don't believe it" side, but hey that's what we need. He actually does the research and gives credit where it's due, unlike the celebrity debunkers the mass media trots out, that can't accept anything unless an alien takes them for coffee. Gotta have a guy that plays a good defense to make your offense evolve.

Yes there should be, and likely already are, FOIAs going in for this info. The whole MUFON thing is not that interesting to me...I get it and why its an issue...but MUFON is a bit of a dusty old book at times. I think Chase Kloetzke's encounter with an alien while working with MUFON on an investigation 5-6 years ago is interesting, and adds up if she used to work for the DOD. MUFON was paid by the DOD through Bigelow, and Bigelow set up a "Star Team" quick response team that Chase was the head of. I don't know enough about her to accept her story (I mean does anyone ever accept alien encounter stories that easily?), but all the tie-ins make sense now.

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Michael Redmond

12/24/2017 08:36:11 am

Yes, Brewer has already announced that he's filing FOIAs. I expect the feds will get a blizzard, and that's as it should be. At this point it's basically looking like MUFON is a spook-manipulated sock puppet -- again, no surprise. Jack's a hoot: "Jack Brewer‏ @TheUFOTrail: It appears a lot of people who, after decades of calling themselves UFO disclosure experts but didn't know anything about the Pentagon UFO program, are conducting media appearances to explain it to you."

Dude

12/24/2017 12:23:50 am

Remember all those skin tight bulletproof alien reports...hmmm, this just came out about graphene and its incredible properties:

Functionally, I usually get 1 or 2 UFO reports a year, and the people who had them are shook up. It used to be I could point them to MUFON where they could share their experiences.and to make a record.

By the way, those Persistent Fast Radio Bursts may come from other sentients' impactor detection systems, and there should be a Rob McConell Show where I spoke about them.

And China has great new radio telescope.

IN the cosmic scale of things, you'd be better off worrying about where the next piece of stuff from space that is going to hit Earth is.

And that $22 mil should have been spent on that.

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Dude

12/25/2017 02:37:34 am

Wrapped up in UFOs...not really, but it is nice to finally have the government admit to studying the subject. I'm fine if most people aren't interested, but not if my government isn't. Whether it be aliens or a foreign country, it needs to be tracked and studied. What if the Chicago O'Hare UFO sighting was a terrorist drone? "Oh don't report it, it's a UFO. We don't want to be made fun of." I'm cool with $4-5 million being spent per year, but I'm sure they have spent a lot more than that...probably more in the trillion dollar range in black budget money. The difference is this could be a national security threat unlike scientific studies of past history.

I'm all for science and appreciate your work, but I'd hate for Russia, China, or Iran to get the drop on us if this tech was theirs. I doubt it is, but I'm sure they are greedily studying it. If it is aliens, well I'm sure we offer little in resources worth fighting over, but nothing says they're an organized planetary group. They could be a band of criminals or outcasts or refugees...looser organized and not as interested in what humans care about. Maybe they're missionaries or tourists or scientists? It's been 70 years of this stuff, not studying it seems like a slap in the face of science just because we are afraid of what we might find is something smarter than us. Plus those that do experience an authentic UFO are isolated and outcast...because of our need to control our fragile experience here. And honestly we fool ourselves daily with this...we don't control much of anything in this universe, but we sure want to.

Not a fan of Blink182 either...like your 3rd link, the other two...eh not terrible but not rocking my world. I'd rather hear these guys...a little slow to start but a great tune to "think" to when driving.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeaDE1magRk

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An Over-Educated Grunt

12/25/2017 11:48:13 am

"Finally admit to studying it?"

Son, Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book ran so long ago they're collecting Social Security.

Dude

12/25/2017 01:52:56 pm

True. But they stopped those programs 40+ years ago. Of course they were lying and still studying it all those years which FOIAs have caught them on, but this is the first time they've admitted they are studying UFOs again publicly. I get why they do it to a point, in order to protect or cover story our own top secret military projects.
But when the past heads of Skunkworks admit they want to know about UFOs and how they work, it's time to admit there are craft out there that we don't understand and are not ours. It's ok, we've lived with it for a long time and society hasn't collapsed.

E.P. Grondine

12/25/2017 01:56:48 pm

Hi Dude -

Thanks. If the lead vocal and rhythm guitar were replaced on that third track, it might be a good song.

Your guys:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgnQVjp3VUY

The ethereal organ and riding bass your guys set on to that tune are pretty sweet. But compare their vibe to that of this local band:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgnQVjp3VUY

If I want techno, I'd rather be listening to techno on Crete or one of the islands.

IMO, rotoglow is way better, but then everyone has their own tastes.

Being the cheap bastard that I am, you have to ask yourself how many years of the MUFON budget would that $22 mil have paid for?

The people who have UFO sightings are shook, like that senator and WW II pilot from Alaska, and from what Jason reports the problem that I have is that I now have no one to point them to to share their experiences, .

As you continue your reading on them, you'll find serious researchers who have examined them in great depth. You'll also be able to tell the good work from the poorly done work, and the real guys from the opportunists.

In the meantime, watch out for the scissors and kool aid.
And the conmen selling needless paranoia.

Perhaps they visit us for entertainment?
I keep thinking about the ratings ET TV shows will get,
whoever manages to pick them up. If China picks their shows up first, everyone else may as well go home and stay in bed.

In the meantime, remember that any ET is likely to have impactor detection systems, and that those signals in either the radar or optical bands are likely to be the most powerful signals they produce.

BTW, the original "Wow!" print out is on display at the Columbus Observatory.

I don't know what an "impactor detection systems" is but I suspect it doesn't throw off EMF radiation that can be detected at interstellar distances. Without heapum firewater. Sounds like someone imagining technology that hasn't been invented.

James Menzel

8/10/2018 06:10:58 pm

"The program’s funding dried up in 2012, though some reports say that the Pentagon continues to analyze anomalous aerial reports—as they should, since other countries are sending who knows what into the sky! The program’s director resigned with a blistering letter blasting the Pentagon for failure to take the UFO threat seriously. But he didn’t resign in 2012 when the program ended. Instead, Luis Elizondo resigned in October of this year, at exactly the same time that he joined former rock star and current UFO nut Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, a company that launched on October 11."

----
You don't know what you are talking about. I suggest that you move on to other stories: fashion and party cookies. You are struggling with this one.

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I'm an author and editor who has published on a range of topics, including archaeology, science, and horror fiction. There's more about me in the About Jason tab.